


The Things We Relive

by dracusfyre



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Attempted self harm kinda, Bucky meets baby Tony if that tempts you at all, M/M, Prompt Fill, attempted suicide kinda, depends on how you think time travel works, time travel fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-16 14:30:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12344538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracusfyre/pseuds/dracusfyre
Summary: Sometimes what Tony really needs protection from is himself.For the prompt "Bucky from the future travels back in time to protect pre-im Tony" fromhttp://imaginetonyandbucky.tumblr.com.





	The Things We Relive

            As the room resolved around him with a dizzying blur, Bucky looked down at the baby cooing in the crib, arms and legs waving as he watched the mobile over the crib rotating slowly, little planes and rockets bobbing gently in the breeze left by Bucky’s sudden appearance.

            “Shit. Too far.” He held up his walkie talkie and squeezed the button, hoping that it would work like they all guessed it would. “Guys, you sent me too far.  He’s just a baby.”  He reached into the crib with his metal hand, letting little Tony grab his finger.  “Hey, cutie,” he murmured. “How ya doing?  Trying to save the world yet? No, cuz you can’t even talk.  Look at you, little Iron Baby.”  Tony was gumming Bucky’s finger when he realized that his mike was still active.  He let go of the button and felt his face get hot during the long silence that followed.

            “Roger that, James,” Natasha said, laughter still in her voice.  At least it was a break from the tension of the past few days as they tried to figure out how to work Tony’s time machine.  “Come on back and we’ll reset the settings and try again.”

            “10-4.” This time Bucky remembered to let go of the button before he leaned over the crib. He set the walkie talkie down and ran his flesh hand over the downy hair on Tony’s scalp, tracing a finger down his soft cheek.  Tony turned his head towards the sensation and waved his chubby arms and legs until he managed to turn over onto his stomach, looking surprised.  Bucky smiled gently as Tony’s big head bobbled as he tried to look up at Bucky and felt his chest get tight.  “I miss you, Tony.  We’re going to fix this, ok?  It’s going to be alright.”

            “Who the hell are you?” A woman demanded shrilly from the door. “Get away from my baby!”

            Bucky had just enough time to grab the walkie and hit the getaway button before Maria Stark descended on him like a Valkyrie.

            “Did anyone see you?” Natasha asked when he reappeared in Tony’s lab.

            “Tony’s mom, but she wouldn’t recognize me.”

            Natasha raised her eyebrow and said dryly, “but I imagine than seeing someone disappear into thin air might cause some comment.”

            “Oh, yeah. Whoops.”  Bucky chewed on his lip for a moment and then had to shrug. “Can’t do anything about it now.  We don’t have time to go back and fix it, right? I’ll do better next time.  Maybe she’ll just think she hallucinated or something.”  He hesitated. “How’s Steve?”

            “Still in the hospital, but the doctors say he’s healing well.  Sam’s with him now.”

            “Does he know?”

            “No.” She shook her head, her red hair swinging gently. She tucked some of it behind her ear and pretended like she was studying the control panel.  “Right now it’s just us, but I feel like it’s only a matter of time before Dr. Strange comes around wondering why Tony wanted to study his necklace.”

            “Yeah.” Bucky frowned at the Eye of Agamemnon, which was staring out of Tony’s machine impassively, shining green and looking vaguely sinister amidst the shiny steel and glass device Tony built to harness its power. “Alright, let’s go again.”

            Natasha looked at Tony’s scrawled notes, somehow managing to read his handwriting, and did something to the control panel. “Ready?”

            Bucky tugged his sleeve and his glove to make sure his arm was covered, and smoothed down his hair under his hat.  He took a deep breath and said, “Ok, go.”

            This time Bucky flickered into existence in a shady park, near an elaborate playground that only had a couple of kids on it.  Bucky’s brow creased as he swiftly examined his surroundings, trying to find Tony.  There was one woman sitting on a bench with a baby carrier at her feet, trying to divide her attention between the baby and a blonde hair girl throwing sand in the sandbox.  On the far side of the playground a man had a briefcase opened next to him and was deeply absorbed in a file of papers while on the playground the only other kid was a dark-haired boy climbing all the way to the top of the structure, which was at least twenty feet off the ground.

            “Dad! Look at me, Dad!” The boy called out as he balanced precariously on the highest railing, one hand holding on while the other waved at the oblivious businessman.

            “Goddammit, Howard,” Bucky growled. “Tony, stop!” he shouted, as loud as he dared. “Get down!” he went around to the other side of the structure so that Howard wouldn’t see him and gestured for Tony to come down.  Tony glanced at him curiously, clearly wondering why this strange man knew his name, but then he turned back to his father. 

            “Dad!”

            Bucky started to climb the structure to get him when Tony lost his balance with a sharp cry of surprise.  He caught himself for a minute with one hand, but it quickly slipped off.  Bucky managed to catch him as he fell, reaching out through the bars to grab a wrist before Tony could hit the ground. “Come on, grab on,” he urged, and Tony, wide-eyed and breathing shakily from adrenaline, finally grabbed the bars and let Bucky help him climb over until he was standing on one of the playground’s metal walkways.  “You ok?”

            Tony nodded, still looking like he wanted to cry but holding it in with a tight jaw and damp eyes. Bucky watched him and got a lump in his throat; Tony was already starting to swallow his pain and he was what, six?  Bucky knelt down so he was eye to eye with Tony. “Hey, it’s ok.  It’s ok to be scared or sad or upset, you know? You don’t have to keep it in all the time. It’s not good for you, like trying to hold in a sneeze.”  Bucky mimed holding a sneeze and then having something explode out his ears, and grinned when Tony giggled.  “The more you hold in those feelings the worse it gets when they finally come out.  Even if you have to go somewhere to be by yourself, cry if you need to, ok?  I know what your dad probably says,” Bucky glanced at where Howard had yet to look up from whatever he was writing, “but it doesn’t actually make you less of a man to cry.” Tony looked dubious but he eventually nodded.  “I’ve gotta go now, but I want to show you something cool.”  When Tony’s eyes lit up, Bucky pulled his glove off and waved his metal fingers at Tony.

            “Holy shit!” Tony said and Bucky shushed him with a laugh.  “Are you a robot?”

            “A little bit. I came from the future to save your life.  Be a little more careful so I don’t have so much work to do, ok?” Bucky winked and gave Tony a high five with the metal hand.

            He jumped down off the structure and clicked the button on his walkie as soon as he was out of sight of the playground and he was sure no one was around. “Tasha, he’s six.  Still too soon, I'm coming back.”

            “Bleh,” Bucky said when he appeared back in Tony’s lab, feeling a bit queasy.  He waved off Natasha’s curious look and smothered a burp.  “Whatever changes you made last time, you gotta do them a bit more this time.”

            “Ok. Did anyone see you?”

            “Nope,” Bucky lied. “He was on a playground with Howard.”  He chugged a bottle of water while Natasha fiddled again with the control panel.  He eyed the clock on the wall; even though he had spent maybe ten minutes on the playground, a couple of hours had passed here. Thinking about how long Tony had been gone before they realized what he’d done made Bucky’s stomach roil again, so he pushed the thought away.

            “I’m being cautious because I don’t want to go too far,” she explained as Bucky got ready to go back again.  “You’ll probably be too soon again, but at least I’ll know what kind of increments this thing is calibrated to.”

            Bucky nodded, and then there was a brain hurting blackness and then Bucky was standing in the middle of what looked like a college campus.  Someone on a skateboard ran into him and fell down to the pavement when Bucky didn’t give at all.  “Watch it, man,” the kid scowled and grabbed his skateboard while Bucky just stared.  Bucky knew that he was still too early, because this was probably while Tony was in college, but the prospect of seeing a teenage Tony was too good to pass up. With a guilty mental apology to Natasha, Bucky tried to look less like a shifty hobo while he looked around.  

            It turned out to be pretty easy to find him, despite the fact that MIT was a pretty large campus.  Bucky recognized DUM-E in the middle of one of the brick courtyards, picking up and sorting items out of the pile in front of it.  Tony was watching proudly while people were chattering excitedly and adding to the pile for DUM-E to sort.  Beside him, Bucky recognized a young Rhodey, elbowing him and making some joke that had Tony laughing.

            Bucky let himself watch Tony be happy for a while.  The shadows that would haunt Tony’s eyes later were barely present now, the weight of the world only lightly tugging at his shoulders.  He rubbed a hand over his sternum, swallowing thickly at the sudden ache in his chest.  “Still too soon,” he finally said into his walkie talkie. “I think he’s seventeen.”

            “Closer, then.  Ok.”

            When he was back in Tony’s lab he smothered the urge to punch Tony’s stupid time machine. The queasy feeling was back, and stronger now. “Why doesn’t this goddamned Eye of Amaretto-“

            “Agamoto.”

            “ _Whatever_ come with some instructions?  This is so aggravating.”  Outside it had grown dark, and Natasha was starting to look tired.  Hopefully this would be the last trip.

            “We don’t need instructions for the artifact, we need them for the machine, and unfortunately they mostly exist in Tony’s head right now.  I think we’re doing ok, honestly.  I already have the next jump prepared, are you ready?”  

            “Yeah.”  Natasha gazed at him searchingly; this trip was going to be the hard one, hard for Bucky specifically, but he refused to let her take his place.  Not the least because there was no way Bucky would be able to figure out the controls for the machine as fast as Natasha did.

            This time Buckly closed his eyes, knowing before he opened them that Natasha had gotten it right this time.  The chill in the air, the sound of wind through evergreen trees, the gravel he could feel under his boots.  Bucky opened his eyes and saw a dirt road stretch before him, empty and quiet.  He took a few shaky breaths and positioned himself by the side of the road to wait.

            It took an hour for the sound of a car to reach his ears.  Bucky felt his entire body tense and he kept an eye out for the distinctive light of an Iron Man suit.  Too soon, Bucky also heard the growl of a motorcycle and he had to breath shallowly or he thought he was going to throw up.  When the sound of a blown tire and the screech of brakes came, he forced himself to get closer to the road so that he would see Tony before anyone else did.

            But Tony never came.  Bucky forced himself to stay for “ _Sergeant Barnes?”_ and the sickening crunch of a metal fist hitting Howard’s face, for _“Howard? Howard!”_ and the barely audible sounds of someone being strangled.  Even though he knew it was coming the sound of the gunshot made him jump, then came the closing of the trunk and the roar of the motorcycle as the Winter Soldier left.

            He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, listening to the tick and hiss of the damaged motor, before he brought the walkie talkie up to his face, realizing only at that moment that his cheeks were wet.  “We were wrong, Natasha. He didn’t come here.”

            When he appeared back in the lab Natasha pulled him into a hug, tugging his head down for him to bury it in her neck. “I’m sorry, James. I’m so sorry you had to be there for that.”

            Bucky allowed himself to take the comfort she was offering for a few minutes, letting himself shake after holding himself so tightly while he was there.  Finally he lifted his head and dried his face with his sleeve, sheepishly drying off Tasha’s neck too. “Ok. So now what?”

            Natasha touched his face gently before she went back to the controls.  “If he didn’t go back to save his parents, I think there’s only one other time he would have gone.”

            “Afghanistan.”

            Natasha nodded. “At this point, he’s been gone so long that we have to hope he made some of the same mistakes we did, and that he hasn’t actually managed to change anything yet.”

            Just then the door to the lab slammed open, and Steve stormed in. Or, he would have, if he wasn’t holding on to the wall for support, dragging an IV stand and still wearing a hospital gown. “What did he do?”

            “Sorry, guys,” Sam called out from the hallway, blocked from view by Steve’s bulk.  “But you know how he gets.”

            “I’ll handle this, James” Natasha said, and she hit the button and everything went black.

            When the world returned, it returned in a rush of noise and flashing lights, making Bucky wince and cover his ears. He had appeared in the middle of a party so he squinted and looked for an exit to escape the screaming synthesizer and seizure-inducing light show.  Thankfully there was a balcony right next to him, and he fled into the chill night air gratefully.  He wasn’t alone out there, but it was a hell of a lot less crowded than the room he’d fled from.  He took a deep breath and started to call Natasha when he saw Tony leaning against the railing on the far side of the balcony from the doors, head in his hands. Bucky hesitated but eventually put the walkie away, approaching Tony cautiously.

            Whatever was going through Tony’s head, he didn’t notice Bucky’s approach until Bucky cleared his throat. Then he jumped and scowled at Bucky, so drunk he had to squint to focus on Bucky. “Who the hell are you? Go away, this corner is taken.”

            “Are you ok?” Bucky said gently, and Tony’s scowl deepened.

            “Always. What’s it to you, anyway?” Tony reached for the drink he’d set on the railing but Bucky tipped it over the rail and it disappeared, crashing onto the concrete below.  Tony gaped.

            “You’ve had enough for right now, Tony.” Bucky fished out a bottle of water he’d stashed in the deep pockets of his jacket and handed it to Tony. Tony stared at it like Bucky was handing him poison.  Bucky rolled his eyes. “Have some water already. It’s not going to kill you.”

            After a moment of Tony eyeing him and the water suspiciously, Tony took it from it and, after inspecting the unbroken seal, opened it and took a few large gulps.  “Ok, one more time,” he said, screwing the top back on the bottle. “Who the hell are you?”

            “A robot from the future, here to save your life,” Bucky said with a small smile.

            The bottle of water dropped to the ground as Tony stared at him. “Holy shit.” Before Bucky could react, Tony grabbed his left hand and shoved up the sleeve. “I knew it,” he breathed. “I didn’t just make it all up.”

            “You remember me?”

            “Uh, how do you forget a guy with a metal arm? I talked about you for _months_ until my dad yelled at my mom for indulging me in my ‘silly fantasies.’ She used to tell me a story about the time she saw a man with a metal arm standing over my crib one night.”  At Bucky’s guilty look, Tony took a few steps back. “Holy shit, that was you, too?”

            “Um…” Bucky’s mind blanked on how to respond.  He really, _really_ wanted to hit the button to take him back to the future, but there were too many people around for that.

            “Are you like the Terminator? Do I save the world from Skynet?”  Bucky’s heart twisted at the heavy dose of sarcasm in Tony’s voice that didn’t quite disguise the look of hope in Tony’s eyes.  No way he was going to say that Tony kinda sorta helped create Skynet aka Ultron and then had to destroy his own army of robots.

            Instead he took a deep breath and put his hands on Tony’s shoulders.  “In the future, the man you are going to become will save the world _a lot._   You will save countless lives and inspire generations to come with your passion, resilience, ingenuity, and generous heart. But someone” _you_ “is trying to stop you from becoming that man, and I’m trying to keep them from succeeding.”  Bucky wanted so badly to cradle this Tony’s face in his hands and press a kiss to his temple, to his forehead, to show him the gentle affection that his Tony was starved for.  But he’d done enough, apparently, from the way Tony’s face had gone blank with shock. 

            Tony opened the bottle mechanically and drank more, never taking his eyes off of Bucky. “Apparently in the future I’m also bi, because you and me, we’re a thing, aren’t we?”  He said after a moment, gesturing between them with the half-empty bottle of water.

            Shit. “Uh…” For lack of any better options, Bucky vaulted over the balcony and sprinted away, pressing the activator button on the walkie talkie as soon as he was out of sight of the party. 

            “When were you this time?” Natasha asked tiredly, rubbing her temples as Bucky reappeared.

            “New Year’s Eve, 2000,” he answered confidently.  Lots of people had been wearing those goofy glasses at the party, he had noticed that much before he got distracted by Tony.  “How were things with Steve?” he asked before she could think to ask if anyone had seen him.

            “Not great, but I did get him to go lay down.  He’s blaming himself for, you know,” she said, gesturing at the time machine.

            “Yeah, lots of that going around,” Bucky said with a sigh.  

            “Alright. This is it, if he isn’t here…there…then?“ Natasha scowled. “ _Whatever_ , we are back to square one.”

            “No, I think this is it.  I think I know what he’s trying to do.”

            “Yeah, me too,” she said softly.  Bucky recognized the careful way she was holding her shoulders and he put a hand on her back, suddenly realizing that while maybe a few hours had passed for him, she had been here for almost twenty-four hours without sleeping, sitting at the console with nothing to do but wait and think.

            “Tasha, it’s not your fault either.”

            She took a ragged breath, refusing to look at Bucky. “I should have _seen it_ ,” she said fiercely. “It’s what I _do._ ” Bucky opened his mouth to argue but she shook her head sharply and her hand hovered over the button to activate the Eye. “Are you ready?”

            “Yeah.” He patted her back one more time and then stepped away so that she wouldn’t get caught in the time field.  When he emerged from the blackness this time, he had to shield his eyes against the harsh glare of the desert sun, reflecting brutally off the pale sand and rocks.  He spun around when he heard the roar and sharp whistle of a missile being fired, just then noticing the gathering of military officers about a hundred yards away.  Tony’s dark suit stood out amid the pale greens and browns of the Army desert camo.

            “Natasha, I’m here,” he said urgently as the missile impacted with a loud thump miles away.  “They’re doing that big weapons demo. He hasn’t been kidnapped yet!”

            “James,” she said sharply.  “This is it.  You know what to do.”

            “I know, I know.” Bucky took a deep breath and fastened the walkie talkie to his belt so he wouldn’t lose it.  If he were Tony, the best time to intervene would be during the ambush, when the chaos of battle would help confuse the issue.  In the minutes while Tony smiled, shook hands, and handed out drinks Bucky got ready, shifting everything he would need to stop Tony so that it was easy to reach.  As the convoy started to head back to base, he hid himself and managed to grab on to the rear bumper of the last Humvee and pull himself up, careful to stay out of the driver’s line of sight.

            If he hadn’t been looking for it so carefully, he would have missed the glint of Tony’s armor in the sky above the convoy.  He was high, way too high for Bucky to reach him before the ambush started, so Bucky gritted his teeth and waited for the first explosion that marked the start of the attack.  Sure enough, Tony came closer at that, close enough for Bucky to see that the armor that he was wearing was painted in desert colors instead of his characteristic red and gold.  How long had he been thinking about this, planning what he would do?

            Shaking his head, Bucky set aside the plans he had of kicking his own ass soundly for not paying more attention to Tony and got out his grappling device. As soldiers started to stream out of the vehicles and bullets started flying, he shot the hook at Tony and reeled him in as fast as possible before he could pull the hooks out of the plating on his leg.  When he was close enough Bucky climbed to the top of the Humvee and tackled him to the ground, rolling them out of the line of fire for the ambush.

            “Don’t do this, Tony!” Bucky pleaded, prying off Tony’s face plate so he could look him in the eyes. “Please. I’m so sorry for what happened to Steve, but it wasn’t your fault.”   And he was sorry, so, _so_ sorry, beyond words, that he hadn’t seen how far and fast Tony had been spiraling until this happened.

            “Let _go_ , Bucky,” Tony spat. Bucky heard the sound of a repulsor warming up and pushed Tony’s arm away so it blasted harmlessly into the desert sand.  “This is where it starts! I have to stop it!”

            “I’m not going to let you _erase yourself_! I know you are hurting but this is- this is suicide!” Bucky pinned one of Tony’s arms with his flesh hand and dug his metal fingers into the plating around the arc reactor, trying to rip it out and kill the suit.

            “I’m not going to _die_ , Bucky,” Tony said, lip curling. He hit Bucky in the side of the head with his free hand and twisted his hips, trying to throw Bucky off his chest.  Bucky just set his mouth in determination and kept digging at the arc reactor, hoping that Tony wasn’t truly willing to hurt him in order to go through with this insane plan.  “I’ll just be- everything will be different. It will fix all of it, Ultron, Steve, _everything_!”

            “No. This world is a better place because of you, because of Iron Man. I’m not going to let you change that, change _you._ ” Bucky closed his hand around the arc reactor and hesitated before he ripped it out. Then he let it go and sat back, letting his hands fall down at his sides.  Defeating Tony now only meant that Tony would try again in the future, he was determined like that. “I love you, Tony,” he said instead, staring steadily into Tony’s eyes. “We all do. _This_ Tony, not some Tony that never became Iron Man. Your life, _our_ lives have been hard, and shitty, and painful, and we’ve made mistakes, but they make us better, not worse. So please, _please,_ don’t do this.  Don’t…don’t leave me,” he finished, voice raw.

            Tony was silent for so long that  Bucky climbed off his chest and stood, heart heavy, explosions and gunfire still going off in the distance.  After a moment, Tony raised his hand for help climbing to his feet, and Bucky went weak with relief. Bracing himself, he took the hand and pulled Tony up in his heavy-ass Iron Man suit.  When he stood, Bucky’s forehead creased with confusion when he realized that Tony was staring at him like he was seeing him for the first time. 

            “ _You_ were my guardian robot this whole time,” Tony finally said. The suit opened up and he stepped out of it to pull the leather glove off Bucky’s metal hand, just like Bucky had done Tony’s lifetime ago.

            “Yeah, Natasha and I have had some, uh, technical issues with that Eye of Amarillo time machine you built.  I bounced around a lot.”

            “Agamoto,” Tony corrected absently and Bucky rolled his eyes.  “I-I broke my arm when I fell off that playground…” Tony rubbed his temples as tried to concentrate, memories overwriting themselves as they tried to catch up with the changes Bucky had made to his past.  “And in 2000 I almost died of alcohol poisoning.  But instead, you…saved me.”

            “Well, yeah. You saved me first,” Bucky pointed out.  After Siberia life had been a stone cold bitch, even with the safe haven in Wakanda.  It had been Tony that had pressed the issue on the Accords, pointing out all of the Secretary Ross’s heavy-handed, extralegal activities and gotten the warrants against everyone rescinded.  Tony had given them a home at Avenger’s headquarters and then with equal parts sarcasm, sympathy, and screaming matches, forced Steve and Bucky to take steps to start their healing process.  “Come here.”

            Then Bucky finally got to put his arms around Tony like he’d been wanting to do for both decades and hours. The feeling of Tony’s warm body against his own had Bucky sighing deeply with relief, from what felt like his bones.  He pressed a kiss to Tony’s temple. “Let’s go home, sweetheart.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr, I'm on it](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dracusfyre)


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